Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Cities of Tomorrow and the City to Come: A Theology of Urban Life
    Cities of Tomorrow and the City to Come: A Theology of Urban Life
    Cities of Tomorrow and the City to Come: A Theology of Urban Life
    Ebook90 pages1 hour

    Cities of Tomorrow and the City to Come: A Theology of Urban Life

    By Noah J. Toly

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Each day, the world’s urban population swells by almost 200,000. With every passing week, more than a million people new to cities face unexpected realities and challenges of urban life. Just like the sheer volume of people in the city, these challenges can be staggering. As with the height and breadth of our metropolises, the wonders of urban life can be breathtaking. Like the city itself, the questions and challenges of urban life are both sprawling and pulsing with vitality.

     

    As part of Zondervan's Ordinary Theology series, this volume offers a series of Christian reflections on some of the most basic and universal challenges of 21st century urban life. It takes one important dimension of what it means to be human—that human beings are made to be for God, for others, and for creation—and asks, “What are the implications of who God made us to be for how we ought to live in our cities?” 

     

    This book is intended for Christians facing the riddle of urban creation care, discerning the shape of community life, struggling with the challenges of wealth and poverty, and wondering at the global influence of cities. It is meant for those whose lives and livelihoods are inextricably bound up in the flourishing of their neighborhood and also for those who live in the shadow of cities. Most of all, it is meant for those grappling with the relationship between the cities of tomorrow and the glorious city to come.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherZondervan
    Release dateMay 5, 2015
    ISBN9780310516026
    Cities of Tomorrow and the City to Come: A Theology of Urban Life
    Author

    Noah J. Toly

    Noah Toly (Ph.D., University of Delaware) is Associate Professor of Urban Studies and Politics & International Relations at Wheaton College. He is editor of the Routledge series Cities and Global Governance and has co-authored and co-edited several other books including Understanding Jacques Ellul and Keeping God’s Earth: The Global Environment in Biblical Perspective.

    Read more from Noah J. Toly

    Related to Cities of Tomorrow and the City to Come

    Titles in the series (100)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    Christianity For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      In LGBT-Welcoming Britain, Church of England Tries to Find Its Path

      Dec 22, 2017

      Anglican membership in Britain has shrunk radically in recent decades, particularly among youth. One cause is Britons' embrace of LGBT issues, which has outpaced the church's. But the church's efforts to respond are causing internal tensions.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Faith-Based Farming

      May 10, 2019

      Too often in environmentally themed discussions, spiritual reasons for building compost piles and pond dams get lost in practical howto. Our temptation is to get excited about the how, and that’s all well and good. But if we plan to leave a legacy th

      5 min read

    • Article

      Why The Church Fails To Get Answers From Above

      Jul 28, 2022

      DR JOHN SENTAMU’S REPLACEMENT as Archbishop of York is the Most Reverend Stephen Cottrell. Having been suffragan Bishop of Reading and then Bishop of Chelmsford, holding the Church of England’s second most important job means Cottrell (below) will li

      6 min read

    • Article

      Letters To The Editor

      Jul 30, 2021

      Dear readers, we love to hear your thoughts on the stories that we publish, what is going on around the world, and what the Lord has placed on your heart! Email your letter through to editor@joymag.co.za for a chance to be featured – please try to ke

      7 min read

    • Article

      How Should We Respond To Celebrities Coming To Christ?

      Dec 30, 2019

      If you’ve been following the news lately, you will have noticed a significant wave of celebrities who are turning to Christ. In what is referred to as a massive spiritual movement, the sinful city of Hollywood is turning more and more stars away from

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Museum of the Bible Is More Than a Museum

      Nov 21, 2017

      The Museum of the Bible opened in Washington, D.C., last weekend, and not a moment too soon for a city (and nation) plagued by scandal. In addition to ongoing investigations by a special counsel and various congressional committees, sexual harassment

      2 min read

    • Article

      THE WAR FOR OUR YOUTH Why creation still matters

      Dec 30, 2019

      We’re being told by public education systems, universities, media, some parents, and unfortunately many church leaders, that parts of the Bible are not relevant anymore and that we need to reinvent God’s word. So, with this situation, in order to und

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Rebel Evangelical

      Aug 23, 2019

      The Rebel Evangelical
      9 min read

    • Article

      Time For The Church To Embark On A Navel-gazing Exercise

      Mar 31, 2024

      FOR any political structure that fails in the absence of moral direction, it would seem natural for it to turn to organised religion for leadership. Unfortunately, the direction of most modern institutional religion is decidedly secular. The institu

      5 min read

    • Article

      Letters To The Editor

      Dec 30, 2019

      Letters To The Editor
      6 min read

    • Article

      Why Study Church History?

      Jun 15, 2020

      Why Study Church History?
      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Cities of Tomorrow and the City to Come

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Cities of Tomorrow and the City to Come - Noah J. Toly

      FOREWORD TO THE ORDINARY THEOLOGY SERIES

      Gene L. Green

      Ordinary theology. These two words together sound like an oxymoron. We’re accustomed to thinking about theology as the stiff and stifling stuff found in ponderous tomes written by Christian scholars in ivory towers, places far removed from our ordinary lives. We live on the street, in our homes, in places of business, in schools, in gyms, and in churches. What does theology have to do with the ordinary affairs of our daily lives?

      We want to bring the Bible into our lives, to be sure, and we attend church to learn about God’s Word. We read our favorite passages and wonder how ancient stories about Noah on the water or Jesus on the water relate to the checkout at the grocery store, the hours at work, the novel we read for pleasure, the sicknesses we endure, the votes we cast, or the bed. How do we construct a bridge between the biblical worlds and the twenty-first-century world as we seek to follow Jesus faithfully? The distance between our local shopping center and Paul’s forum in Athens (Acts 17) seems like an unbridgeable canyon. What does the Bible have to do with the wonderful or difficult realities we face on the baseball field or in the city? How do we receive God’s Word, which is truly for all people, at all times, in all places?

      It’s an old question, one the church has been asking for centuries. The Bible is a historical document with contemporary relevance. But we’re also aware that it doesn’t seem to speak directly to many situations we face. There is no obvious biblical view of nuclear war, a kind of destruction unknown in the ancient world. What about epidemics such as AIDS, an unknown disease in the ancient world? The Noah story describes a dramatic climate change, but does that cataclysm have anything to do with global warming today? Through the centuries, Christians have understood that the Bible cannot be simply proof-texted in all life’s situations. Yet we still believe that the Bible is God’s word for us in our complex world. Enter theology.

      The word theology comes from a couple of Greek terms: theos and logos. Theos means God and logos means word. Simply stated, theology is words that express thoughts about God. We hold beliefs about God such as God is love (1 John 4:8). We understand that Jesus died for our sins and that we have a hope that transcends the grave because of the resurrection of Christ. All these are theological statements. We have received Christian theology through our parents, church, and Scripture reading, and we attempt to find how biblically based belief relates to our lives. We do theology as we take Scripture and our inherited theology and seek to work out what God is saying about the issues of today. Every Christian is a theologian.

      Ordinary theology is, really, just another way to say theology. The expression emphasizes how theology is part of the ordinary stuff of daily life. Food is a theological topic. We can think about buying food, the need for food, those without food, selling food. What does the Bible have to say about food supply, hunger, and generosity? To ask that question is to think theologically about food. What about government welfare or foreign aid? We can think through the whole of Scripture and apply its perspectives and teachings to such issues. This is theology. And it is something every Christian can and must do. We believe that the gospel is relevant not only to our inner life, but to life in the world. The road we travel as ordinary Christians is to do ordinary theology as we work God’s message into all aspects of daily life.

      The Ordinary Theology Series has a few goals. The first is to take up the common issues of daily life and think through them theologically. But another purpose of the series is to invite you to develop your skills as a theologian. These small books are examples of theological method but also a welcome into the necessary, challenging, and joyous task of doing theology. We’re all called to follow the example of the first great Christian theologian whose day job was netting fish for a living. Peter did not receive training in the rabbinic schools as had Paul, yet he was the one who first understood and stated that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God (Matt. 16:16). He also opened the door of faith to the Gentiles as he came to understand that God accepts every person, regardless of ethnicity (Acts 10). Each of us can make a theological contribution to the church, our family, our community, and our own life. For your sake and the sake of others, be a theologian.

      One final word about format. Each chapter begins with a story, and theological reflection follows. Theology happens in the place where Scripture meets us on the road where life is lived tensely, where thought has its birth in conflict and concern, where choices are made and decisions are carried out.¹ We go to Scripture and the deep well of Christian theology as we develop our theology in the place where we find ourselves. God is concerned about people and places and does not ask us to divorce ourselves from them as we follow and serve Christ. And he gives us guidance on how to do that. So, enjoy the read! And again: be the theologian.

      1

      WHAT HAS CHICAGO TO DO WITH JERUSALEM?

      A Preface on Learning, Faith, and Urban Life

      When Gene Green first asked me to contribute to this series, I was astonished by the timing. I had just—I mean just—finished telling a friend about a recent lunch with one of the foremost urbanists of our time. This urbanist, one of the world’s most influential scholars of cities and urban life, had requested a lunch with me during a conference we were both attending. Her invitation was the kind that you don’t turn down. Little did I know when I accepted it, though, that our meeting would focus on a discussion of faith and learning and, more specifically, the relationship between Christian faith and how we come to understand contemporary urban life.

      Over lunch we discussed her most recent big project and my latest work, and then she asked this question: "Now, Noah, I recently wrote a letter recommending you for

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1